In India, entertainment no matter what kind, cannot be complete without referencing Bollywood. Television, print, online portals you name it. The Mobile gaming bandwagon has also indulged in Bollywood titles, however a lot of potential lies untapped.

Session 2, Day 2 at MGC2005 was devoted to Bollywood & Hollywood.

The Panelists were Rajiv Hirandani (M2W CEO), Neeraj Roy (MD, Hungama) Biren Ghose (Animation Bridge CEO) & Harman Baweja (Baweja Movies)

Taking strike, M2W's Rajiv demoed some AVIs and sound clips from the Sholay game made by M2W. An interesting thing about the demo was the sound clips which featured mimicry artists mimicking the lead characters dialogues.

"Bollywood is keen on mobile games because they get some good publicity at no cost and also some additional revenue. Besides their product is also promoted in other countries with substantial Indian populations" he stated.

More than just ancillary revenue
A key issue discussed during the session was the need for Bollywood to look at mobile gaming as something more than just promotion and ancillary revenue.

"The gaming industry knows why it needs Bolywood. Bollywood on its part needs to know what it wants from a game developer" said Dhruva CEO Rajesh Rao

Animation Bridge CEO Biren Ghose said, "Bollywood has always looked upon everything other than Box Office as ancillary revenue. They have never invested the kind of love and care that they put into a movie to ancillary revenue streams"

"Bollywood ought to treat mobile games as a product not as an ancillary product. It is key not only in terms of financial inputs but also in terms of brand extension"

But does the onus of applying creativity into mobile games lie only on Bollywood? Producer and actor Harman Baweja who is a self confessed game addict and enthusiast said," I wanted to do a mobile game for my movie Qayamat, and we planned it 4 months prior to the release. But the kind of game I got was something I would never buy and play"

"I refrained from releasing it because it would dilute the value of my movie as well as put off first time gamers from games" he added.

"Besides, I think it is too early to think of mobile gaming as a considerable revenue stream as of now and for me as a producer, mobile games and ring tones are more of a brand building exercise than revenue" he concluded.

At Face Value
Even in today's Multiplex cultured scenario the Bollywood box office initial is dictated by its Star value. The game developers who have worked on Bollywood games seemed to agree that it was necessary to use popular faces to pull in consumers.

Sharing some wisdom that he had gathered from M2W's experience in making Bollywood based mobile games M2W's Rajiv stated, "It is very important to put the celebrities face on the splash screen even if it is an average game"

Hungama's Neeraj Roy stressed on the need to popularize the concept of gaming. "The idea is to use the popularity of the stars and make them endorse gaming. For example Zayed Khan's affinity to gaming is well known, would he be available for promoting a game created around his movie?'

"Bollywood needs to put in Mobile Content marketing appearances into actor's contracts" he added.

Clarity & Transparency
Another issue with Bollywood is that the producers aren't aware of exactly how much
of a percentage of revenue they get from a game.

"There is need to educate Bollywood on the potential of gaming and there has to be a transparency in revenue share" said Hungama's Roy concluding the session.